


A Life Well-Lived

by NervousAsexual



Series: Whumptober 2020 [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26876563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: Belethor has time to think about things, on account of being kidnapped.
Relationships: Belethor & Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn
Series: Whumptober 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1960987
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12
Collections: NervousAsexual's Stephen Russell Skyrim Challenge, Whumptober 2020





	A Life Well-Lived

**Author's Note:**

> Whumptober prompt #2--kidnapped

Belethor had a lot of time to think about things on account of being kidnapped.

Among other things, he thought about how incredibly worthless the Whiterun guard was. You'd think the gang of bandits that trooped into town at quarter to eight would have been a warning sign, but apparently in Skyrim that was a common occurrence. Belethor had thought it odd that they all came into the store, but a septim was a septim no matter who spent it, so he let it slide. After all, if the guard didn't think anything amiss...

Well, something was amiss. If he'd followed his instincts and called Sigurd back in from where he was splitting wood--well, that probably would have gotten them both kidnapped, but at least then he wouldn't be sitting in this miserable damp cave alone.

There'd been four bandits in the store at once, and possibly another outside keeping an eye out for the guard, as if that was really necessary. Two nords (one with a sword, one with a bow), an imperial, one argonian. He hadn't seen an argonian since his last trip out to Windhelm. That surprised him; he hadn't realized that he hadn't seen any around Whiterun. He kept an eye on the argonian--who wasn't wearing a shirt, shouldn't he be cold--and that was how the imperial sneaked up behind him and put a knife in his ribs.

"Nice and easy does it," he said. "Open up that lockbox."

Belethor didn't say a word. His instinct was to swear and possibly say something insulting, and that seemed like a bad idea so long as he was not interested in aerating his insides. Instead he popped the key in the lock and opened up the box.

"You have got to be kidding me," one of the nords said. "Where's the rest of it?"

"The rest of what?" Belethor asked, which was entirely the wrong thing to do. One of them cuffed him upside the head. "Maybe you haven't noticed but this is a shop. The money goes right back into the merchandise."

He couldn't help feeling a little bit vindicated as they stared around the shop. Idiots should have robbed a specialty shop if they wanted cash.

"We should take what we can carry," the argonian suggested. "Maybe we can fence it off in Riften?"

"You moron, what are we gonna carry?" the nord with the bow snapped from somewhere behind him. "Are you gonna lug candlesticks and, what is this, the complete _Barenziah_ trilogy across two holds?"

"Doesn't matter," the imperial said. "Thieves guild has gone to shit anyway. They don't have the money for this."

"I'm just making a suggestion. I don't see you coming up with any better ideas."

"Oh yes you do." The imperial threw an arm around Belethor's shoulders--instinct said punch him in the face, but remember the knife--and squeezed. "Friend. Buddy. You got a back way out of this place?"

Belethor said nothing.

"Just asking to be polite. I know there is. And you're gonna follow me there. Then we're gonna take a little walk, and if you so much as look funny at the guard I'll give you a good sticking. How about that?"

He'd thought when they said a walk they meant to the front gates. Seemed reasonable enough; that was the only way in or out of the city, as far as he knew. He figured when they got out there in the city he'd squirm away or yell for the guard or...

But they didn't. They walked him to an abandoned guard post facing east and jumped over the wall.

He'd figured he'd break both legs, but those were surprisingly fine. No, it was the sharp piercing pain in his side that alarmed him. He and the imperial both looked down to find the knife in his side and blood on his shirt.

"Would you watch where you're pointing that thing?" he said, not even realizing what had just happened.

"Damn it. Who's got a health potion?"

Nobody answered. Belethor put a hand to his side and debated whether or not to try and pull the knife out.

"Are you serious? None of you have a... what happened to your plan to carry off the guy's entire stock?"

"You said not to." The argonian shrugged.

The imperial groaned, so loud that for half a moment Belethor thought a guard would hear, or Ysolda walking by to her house, but nothing came of it.

He considered yelling. What were they going to do, stab him again?

"Walk," the imperial demanded, a hand pressing into the space between his shoulders. He stumbled because he couldn't feel his legs, or much of anything, really, beyond the stabbing in his side, and when one of the nords took him by the other arm he decided he didn't have much to lose.

"Help!" he shouted up to the city wall. "Down here! I'm..." The imperial backhanded him. Stung like hell but worthless. As if that would stop him for more than a moment. "Guards!"

"Don't make me have to gag you," the nord holding his arm, the one with the bow, said. The argonian put his hands to his ears.

He thought he heard something up above, looked up to the wall, and realized too late he'd forgotten about the other nord.

"Wait a minute," he said, but it was too late. The pommel of the sword was already crashing down into his skull.

* * *

Woke up here, in some divines-forsaken cave, when they were pouring a healing potion down his throat. That stopped the bleeding as far as he could tell. He was still sore and more than a little pissed off, but he wasn't dead, and that was a place to start.

They tied him up and left him kneeling by himself in some... hallway, he guessed, or at least that was what they were using the grimy tunnel as. Although if they weren't going to clean it up, why bother? Why not set up camp in some hovel on the plains made of three sticks and a prayer?

That was the first of the things he thought about: how dark and miserable the place he was being held was, and how desperately he wanted to leave it.

The second thing he thought about was Sigurd. How long would it take for the kid to miss him? Part of him doubted that he'd even notice. It would probably be a customer who'd notice first, when they wandered in and the place was unlocked. Hopefully they wouldn't clear the place out before they alerted the guard.

This brought about the third train of thought. Who exactly was he being ransomed to?

That was what kidnappers did, wasn't it? It would have been easy enough for them to knife him to death as soon as they were over the city wall, but they'd chosen to drag him off to whatever corner of this frozen, dragon-infested wasteland this was instead. That had to mean they thought he was of some value to somebody with the means to pay a ransom.

Trouble was, he couldn't actually think of anybody who fit the bill.

Sigurd might care that he was missing, but he didn't have any money and even if he raided the till he still wouldn't have enough to ransom a wet dog. The Battle-Borns and Grey-Manes both frequented his store and had the means to bail him out, but none of them liked him enough to hand over money on his behalf. Beyond that, who would miss him? The innkeeper down at the Drunken Huntsman? The few distant cousins he had left back in High Rock?

To keep his mind off the growing ache in his legs he thought up a list of reasons that might convince the bandits he was worth keeping alive.

1\. They could use his services as a fence

2\. He could hang around and offer them free cooking and cleaning

3\. They could still sell him to the hagravens for some kind of ritual sacrifice.

4\. He could somehow get untied, then run for it and/or find a big rock and beat the daylights out of every bandit in the place.

There was a sharp stabbing pain in his stomach, but it was nowhere near where the imperial had knifed him. No point in sugarcoating it; the only way he got out of this alive was if they sold him into slavery.

Sure. Because people who wanted slaves paid piles of septims for middle-aged Bretons with arthritic hands and no real skills beyond pawnbroking.

Septims to sweet rolls, then, that he would die in this miserable hole in the ground. Was it a life well lived? The circumstances suggested not. If it had been he would have someone to miss him or some greater accomplishment in life than having once sold twelve bales of straw and a child's doll to the dragonborn.

No family. No friends. Just a few regular customers and the kid he paid to plug the store. Might as well have stayed in High Rock.

* * *

Unsure what woke him, he squinted into the darkness and tried to take stock. Stitch in his side where they'd stabbed him, check. Body temperature so low he wasn't shivering anymore, check. Absolutely no feeling in anything below his thighs, check.

The hall or cave or whatever it was sat still and silent for a moment. Then there came a gentle clattering, like rocks disturbed on a hillside. Turning his attention toward that drew in another sound--the soft padding of footsteps.

"Who's there?" he called into the darkness. The shaking in his voice irritated him; the chill in the air he told himself. "I have a knife." A lie, of course, but it made him feel better for a moment. Still no response. The footsteps didn't slow. "If you're gonna kill me then do it already and quit taffing with me. I ain't done nothing to you."

The footsteps paused for a moment and then with a burst of flame and a puff of magicka something lit up the cave.

The light was brutal on his eyes. It took a minute to recognize the light as a torch, and the shape holding it as not human or mer, not with that tail. Too thin and twitchy to be argonian. He couldn't remember there being a khajiit bandit, he would've remembered that, and then the torch pulled back and he could see the khajiit's tabby-spotted face, half-hidden behind a leather hood.

"Hiya," she said.

Mind blank, he stared back for a few moments before he recognized the markings. She'd only been in his shop once but you didn't forget a person who bought twelve bales of straw and a child's doll. "Who? ...how...?"

"I got the note." The dragonborn dug around in the bag at her side and pulled out a tattered piece of paper. "I didn't have a hundred septims on hand so I figured murder was the next best option."

All he could do was stare and shrug his shoulders, reminding her he was still tied up.

"Oh, right." She set the torch down beside him and crept around behind, and after a moment he felt the soft fur of her hands and the smooth surface of her claws and then the pressure on his wrists gave and he let both aching arms fall to his side. "Sorry about that."

He mumbled something, just to let her know he'd heard her, as she sliced through the ropes on his ankles. He tried to get up, stretch his legs, and promptly tipped to one side as his legs gave out. The dragonborn caught him right before he pitched over onto the torch.

"It's okay," she said. "Let's get your bearings before we take off."

Common sense told him he should try to get up again but it was so chilly in the cave and her furry arms and soft leather armor felt good on his skin. He closed his eyes and let his head rest against her shoulder. "There were four of them."

"Hm?"

"Bandits. Four of them. Two nords, an argonian and an imperial. Did you... are they gone?"

She was quiet for a moment. "I guess you could say that. That's more the falmers' doing than it was mine, though."

The _what_.

"You would think that before you kidnap somebody you'd find a better place to stash them than a hole in the ground filled with angry cave-dwellers. They didn't do anything to you, did they?" Without waiting for a response she answered her own question. "I guess if they had you wouldn't be here talking to me. Hope you're not offended about the ransom, by the way. It's not that you're not worth a hundred septims but I just blew every coin I had on that little cottage by Warmaiden's. Kind of a dump but I'll get it cleaned up. There's this girl I'm sweet on down in the Rift and I think she'll like it."

She was warm and she felt nice and (he realized now) he was absolutely exhausted. "Why'd you...?"

"Why'd I get the ransom demand? Honestly, I haven't got a clue. Maybe the courier was just confused."

"No. Why'd you come?"

"...because there were bandits holding you ransom?"

She was deliberately misinterpreting him, he knew it. "I don't mean anything to you. You coulda just tossed the note and went on your way. Wouldn't have hurt you any."

"Well, that's not true." She rolled the torch away with one foot and sat down beside him, letting him lean into her. "I like you. You're funny."

He opened his eyes and blinked in the torchlight.

"When I go to Arcadia's she tries to tell me I've got rattles. When I go to Warmaiden's they try to sell me some big battleaxe I can't even carry. But I went into your store and you said... what was it? Something about sisters. 'If I had a sister I'd sell her in a second.' It was funny. There's days I'd like to sell my sisters too. Besides, what kind of dragonborn would I be if I didn't rescue people from bandits?"

He rubbed at the sharp ache in his wrists, and she saw what he was doing and did the same.

"Or falmer, I guess. But I don't think they'll bother us if we don't bother them. Do you need something to drink? Something to eat?" He shook his head. He was tired and confused and she was warm as a cookstove. "Thought I'd better check."

"Shouldn't we go?" he mumbled. His eyes were getting heavy again. "Don't you have dragonborn things to do?"

"If you're ready to go, sure. But you look tired. If you want to take a nap first that's okay too."

She was humoring him and for the life of him he couldn't understand why. What did she get out of this? Why would she lie about what she wanted?

He didn't expect an answer. For the moment he just closed his eyes and let her hold him and listened to the steady rumble of whatever it was that was rumbling.

Wait, he thought, just before sleep caught up to him. Was she purring?


End file.
